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Former FBI agent Robert P. Hansen, who intermittently spied for Moscow in one of the most pernicious espionage cases in U.S. history for more than two decades during and after the Cold War, said Monday in Colorado. was found dead in his cell. federal officials announced. he was 79 years old.
Hansen, who is serving a life sentence, was found unresponsive at the U.S. Prison in Florence just before 7 a.m., the Federal Prison Service said in a statement. He was pronounced dead after rescue efforts by paramedics. The statement did not specify the cause.
Hansen’s case is considered one of the most notorious spy scandals of its generation, with the FBI instructing them to learn that one of their agents had been providing information to the other side for years with impunity. and other government officials were shocked. To this day, the FBI calls him “the most deadly spy in the history of the agency.”
Mr. Hansen delivered a ton of secrets to Moscow in exchange for $1.4 million in cash, bank money and diamonds. Among them was one that revealed that the US government had dug tunnels under the Soviet embassy in Washington to intercept diplomatic and other communications. . He also tipped Moscow about three KGB agents who were secretly spying for the United States, two of whom were later executed.
“The enormity of Hansen’s crimes cannot be overstated,” said Paul J. McNulty, the U.S. prosecutor who prosecuted Mr. Hansen, on Monday following news of his death. “They will long be remembered as one of the most egregious betrayals of trust in American history. This was both a low point for the FBI and a successful investigation.”
Mr. Hansen’s arrest in 2001 briefly tore ties between the two former enemies at a time when they were trying to become more friendly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. President George W. Bush expelled about 50 Russian diplomats, and Russian President Vladimir V. Putin expelled 50 American diplomats in retaliation. But both sides were determined to end the matter there and not allow the rift to linger any longer.
The discovery of Hansen’s espionage embarrassed the FBI and led to changes in security procedures. After his arrest, he told investigators that the agency’s security was so lax that it amounted to “criminal negligence.” He said it’s easy to access confidential material on official computers with just routine security clearance.
According to a Justice Department report on Mr. Hansen’s case in 2002, Mr. Hansen said, “Anyone at the Bureau could come up with information about that system, and it’s criminal.”
Hansen pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy to avoid the death penalty and expressed remorse for his betrayal. “I’m ashamed of that,” he said at a hearing in 2002 when he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Hansen had been held since July 17, 2002 in Florence, a supermax facility considered the federal system’s safest prison and used to hold convicted terrorists in recent years. Inmates here are typically held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.
Mr. Hansen joined the FBI as a special agent in 1976 and has since held several counterintelligence positions with access to classified information. Three years after joining the agency, when he was assigned to the New York counterintelligence unit, he stepped into the New York office of the Soviet trade group Amtorg, known as the Soviet Front, and began spying for the Soviet Union. Military Intelligence Agency.
He stopped spying for several years starting in 1980 after his wife Bonnie broke into the basement of their home in Westchester County, New York, but soon tried to cover up the papers. He confessed to her and to a priest who belonged to the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei, to which the couple belonged.
In 1985, he began spying again, providing information to the KGB. This time, he used encrypted communications and other covert methods to do a better job and cover up his tracks. Even the Russians didn’t know who he was. Mr. Hansen, identifying himself only by codenames such as B and Ramon Garcia, submitted classified information said to include certain satellite intelligence-gathering capabilities.
He stopped spying again after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but resumed in 1999. His betrayal went undetected for years because he had collected at least $600,000 in cash and diamonds from the KGB and its successor, the SVR. Prosecutors say he put another $800,000 in a Moscow bank for him.
In the 1990s, after the arrest of CIA agent Aldrich Ames, who was also a spy for Russia, the FBI and CIA realized that someone was still providing classified information to Russia, and launched an undercover operation known as the “Gray Suits.” started. An unidentified double agent. But it wasn’t until 2000 that investigators were able to narrow down their search, when the FBI asked a former Russian agent to buy files on an anonymous mole named B. It was time to pay the dollar. That file contained a voice recording that said: Two FBI analysts who knew Mr. Hansen eventually recognized it.
Using fingerprints, the FBI identified the mole as Mr. Hansen, monitored him for months, and encouraged further tracking. In February 2001, investigators allegedly left classified documents in a garbage bag under a tree at a “dead end” of a Russian officer at Foxstone Park, a Washington suburb of Vienna, Virginia, a few blocks from his home. Arrested. pedestrian bridge.
Hansen didn’t seem surprised to finally be arrested. “Why were you so late?” he reportedly asked when he was arrested.
Robert Philip Hansen was born in Chicago on April 18, 1944, to Vivian Hansen and Howard Hansen. Howard Hansen was a career police officer in Chicago who worked as an intelligence agent in the same department. An only child, Robert had a troubled relationship with his father and was emotionally abused by him because he was seen as geeky and unsociable. He grew up obsessed with James Bond, collected spy gear and even opened a Swiss bank account.
Hansen received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Knox University in Illinois in 1966, where he also studied Russian, but was rejected by the National Security Agency when he applied for a cryptography job after graduation. He attended Northwestern University School of Dentistry, but then transferred to business school and earned a master’s degree in business administration.
While in dental school, he met and married Bonnie Wolk, converted from Lutheranism and joined her Roman Catholic faith. She worked for an accounting firm for a year before she took a job with the Chicago Police Department specializing in forensic accounting. Four years later he transferred to the FBI
Bright but vulnerable, Mr. Hansen is said to have resented not having received the respect and duties he felt he deserved. He thought his decision to spy for Moscow was due to money, as his six children attend parochial school and college, but the reasons are perfectly understandable. did not
“Many of the factors that have motivated or influenced traitors in the past, such as greed, ideology, career disappointment and resentment, drug and alcohol abuse, do not apply to Mr. Hansen and his actions are not adequately addressed. No explanation,” said the Justice Department inspector. A general report on the incident in 2003 stated:
Mr. Hansen led a double life in many ways. An active member of the Roman Catholic lay organization Opus Dei, he claimed to be a religious, committed anti-communist conservative. However, reports say he also attended strip clubs, secretly watched his friends have sex with his wife, entered into a secret but allegedly non-sexual relationship with an exotic dancer, and allegedly It is said that he brought a gift to the FBI and asked the FBI to investigate. Travel to Hong Kong.
Mr. Hansen was able to evade detection by blocking US intelligence signals. His own brother-in-law, who also worked for the FBI, reported allegations against Hansen to the agency a decade before he was arrested, but the supervisor he spoke to ignored his concerns. .
Hansen has been the subject of several books and movies, including the 2002 TV movie played by William Hurt and the 2007 full-screen movie Bleach, played by Chris Cooper.
“Hansen was a man full of contradictions, a suburban father and ostensibly devoted to his family, but while he professed to be deeply religious, at the same time his family, his faith, his country, etc. I betrayed everyone who was important to me,” said co-author Anne Blackman. The author of “The Spy Next Door” said Monday. “Throughout 21 years and four presidential and three FBI director terms, he fooled everyone.”
Jesus Jimenez Contributed to the report from New York.
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